How to Backtest the Nasdaq (US100)

The Nasdaq 100 — quoted by brokers as US100 or NAS100 — is an index of the hundred largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange, and it behaves nothing like a currency pair. It is more volatile, more concentrated in a handful of technology names, and structured around a cash session that a forex trader has no equivalent for. A strategy that works on EUR/USD cannot simply be pointed at it.

US100, NAS100, NDX or NQ — which one are you testing?

These names get used interchangeably and they are not the same instrument. Getting this wrong is the first and most expensive mistake in a Nasdaq backtest, because each one has a different session, a different gap profile and a different cost structure.

The distinction matters most for gaps. A cash-index chart shows one enormous gap every night, because it simply does not exist between 16:00 and 09:30. A CFD or a future trades right through that window, so its overnight "gap" is only the short broker break. Statistics from one do not describe the other. The simulator replays the CFD, which is what most retail traders actually trade, so the rest of this guide describes that instrument.

Points, not pips

The Nasdaq is quoted in index points. There is no four-decimal pip, and a "100 point move" on US100 has nothing in common with a 100-pip move on a currency pair. One point is worth a fixed cash amount per lot, set by your broker, so the dollar value of a move depends on contract size rather than on the pip-value arithmetic you use in forex.

This is where forex traders most often blow up an index account. Carrying a familiar lot size across from EUR/USD onto US100 takes far more dollar risk than intended, because the instrument's daily range is an order of magnitude larger in nominal terms. The fix is the same as it is for gold: let the stop distance set the position size, never the other way round.

Measured: the Nasdaq's daily range grew tenfold in nine years

There is no such thing as "a typical Nasdaq day". We measured the average daily high-low on US100 across every session in the archive:

Two things follow for anyone backtesting this instrument:

• A stop distance from 2017 is not a stop distance for 2026. The average Nasdaq day ran 50 points in 2017 and 487 points in 2026 — nearly ten times wider. A fixed 100-point stop was generous in 2017 and sits well inside the noise today. This is the single biggest reason Nasdaq backtests fail to carry forward: the strategy was fitted to a volatility regime that has since ended.
• In percentage terms it is far steadier. The point range grew tenfold, but as a share of price it moved between 0.86% and 2.91% — because the index itself went from roughly 4,600 to nearly 30,000. Size in percent or in ATR, and most of that apparent explosion disappears.

Computed from the FxBacktest tick-derived OHLC archive: 3,444 US100 daily bars, May 2013 to September 2026. "Points" are index points. Percentages are the daily high-low divided by that day's close, averaged over the year. 2026 covers 198 sessions to date.

The Nasdaq trades almost 24 hours — but not evenly

A CFD on the Nasdaq is open nearly around the clock, which tempts traders into assuming any hour is as good as another. It is not close. Our study of Nasdaq volatility by hour measured 3,378 sessions in US Eastern time and found the movement is heavily concentrated:

The seven-hour cash session is under a third of the clock yet carries more than half the movement and 54% of all daily highs and lows. The quietest overnight hour still averages 21 points, so the rest is thin rather than empty — but point-based stops and targets mean completely different things in each window, and a backtest that mixes them without noticing is really two different tests averaged together.

One finding is worth singling out because it contradicts the usual advice: the closing hour, 15:00-16:00 ET, sets the session high more often than any other hour — 13.06% of the time, beating the open. If you are testing a breakout strategy and stop watching at lunchtime, you are missing where a large share of the day's extremes are made. The same clock logic applies to forex sessions, but the concentration is far sharper here.

Every night has a gap

Forex traders think of gaps as a Sunday problem. On an index they are a nightly one. Our study of index overnight gaps measured 9,722 session breaks and found the median US100 overnight gap is 11.11 points — about 7.4% of a normal day's range — with 89.3% filling within 24 hours.

That fill rate is the most misquoted statistic in index trading. Nine in ten gaps closing sounds like an edge and is not one, because it tells you nothing about whether price reached your stop first, and because the gaps that do not fill are the large ones. Roughly 5.5% of Nasdaq nights gap more than half a daily range. A stop does not protect you across a gap — it becomes a market order at whatever price returns — so holding US100 overnight is a separate risk decision from the trade itself, and one your stop placement has to account for explicitly.

How to backtest the Nasdaq properly

FxBacktest handles the US100 contract size and spread for you, so the dollar risk shown when you drag a stop is the index's real risk rather than a forex figure applied to the wrong instrument. You can open a Nasdaq chart and start replaying immediately — all 93 instruments, including US100, US500 and US30, are free on every plan.

1. Pick the instrument you will actually trade — CFD, future or cash — and test that one. Their gaps and sessions differ enough that results do not transfer.
2. Decide your session rule before you look at results. Cash-session-only, overnight-only or all hours are three different strategies. Choosing after the fact is curve fitting.
3. Size from the stop, in points. Use position sizing driven by ATR or a percentage of price, not a fixed point stop carried across regimes.
4. Span more than one volatility regime. Include a quiet year (2017) and a violent one (2020, 2022) so the result is not a single regime in disguise — see how far back to backtest.
5. Build a real sample. One good month is not evidence; how many trades to backtest covers the arithmetic, and testing across conditions covers the rest.

None of this needs paid software. The full step-by-step loop, from loading the chart to reading the report, is in how to backtest free online.

Respect what makes it different

The Nasdaq offers some of the cleanest trends and sharpest reversals available to a retail trader, but only to someone who sizes for its range, respects its session structure, and treats the overnight hold as its own decision. Backtest it as its own instrument — not as a currency pair with a bigger number — and it becomes a genuinely different market to trade alongside forex rather than a faster way to lose on the same habits.